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Teruaki Kubota
|number = 9 |gender = Male |hair = Dark Brown |eyes = Brown |occupation = Executive technical supervisor of Cradle Pharmaceutical |status = Deceased |affiliates = Gentarou Hongou (Designer and CEO) Nagisa Nijisaki (Fellow executive) Kagechika Musashidou (Majority stockholder) }} Teruaki Kubota, known as the 9th man by the other players, was one of the more elusive characters in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. Very little is known about him as he became the first victim of the Nonary Game after betraying the other players in order to go through Door [5] alone, a violation of Zero's rules. This led to the activation of the small bomb laying in his intestine, thus resulting in his gruesome death. Appearance Kubota had a very scholarly appearance. During the Nonary Game, he wore a pink undershirt with a beige and black waistcoat and a red necktie. He had forest-green pants to go with his purple and white socks that stand out from his black shoes. He also had peculiar black, frizzy hair, which Junpei said resembled a bird's nest. He wore the bracelet with the number 9 on his left hand. In an old photograph that showed him as a scientist at Cradle Pharmaceutical, he wore a white lab coat over his usual attire and also appeared to have a mullet. Personality Kubota was very quiet and reserved. Junpei remarked that Kubota "had only a fingertip's-worth of a grip on his sanity." He was quiet until his heist and doesn't speak much at all until he began ordering everyone around. He was apparently easy to manipulate and had trusted Ace as seen by Ace's confession of why he killed Kubota. He was also extremely capable in machinery and mechanics as seen by the RED and DEAD devices he had developed for the Nonary Game and his position in Cradle Pharmaceutical. Background During the First Nonary Game, Kubota was one of the four executives from Cradle Pharmaceutical that was involved in the creation of the First Nonary Game. He was the creator of the RED and DEAD devices used to open the numbered doors. He also created the bracelets worn by players in the First Nonary Game. Overall, he was responsible for the technology involved with the experiment. The Second Nonary Game 9 years after the events of the First Nonary Game, Kubota found himself kidnapped and forced to participate in the Nonary Game himself. He was presumably stuck in a room similar to the 3rd class cabin and had escaped. Kubota met his fellow players for the first time in the central staircase. When he and Seven approached Junpei, Kubota had said nothing and ran past him. While they were examining the central staircase, he revealed himself to Ace, who was really Gentarou Hongou. Ace ordered him to investigate what is beyond Door [5] so they'll meet again later. However, it was really a trick to let Kubota unknowingly kill himself since Ace saw Kubota both as a threat and his bracelet being a very potent weapon since the number 9 has the ability to not change the digital root of a group when added. Kubota was also used to see if the Nonary Game was what Ace called "a poor attempt of a joke." When approached by Clover to see what his number is, Kubota said that since they know who 1-8 is and that he was the only one left, he showed his bracelet that displayed a 9. When Clover asked what his codename was, he told her he didn't need one since he had a plan. Clover soon asked him what his plan was and Kubota immediately held her by knife point and began ordering everybody around. By this point, everybody had started calling him the 9th Man. After he demanded that Ace and Clover put their left hand on the RED, he proceeded to do the same and released Clover as he promised. With a smirk, he said that he will see what is in Door 5 but before they could do anything to stop him, Door 5 had already closed. When Kubota tried to authenticate on the DEAD, he realized that Ace had lied to him. He started pounding on the door and begged the other eight players to get him out of there. When they were unable to, he took his last minutes to tell them who "killed" him. However, the identity of his killer was not revealed due to Kubota's panicking and he ultimately met his pitiful death. Despite his death being early in the Nonary Game, he had an indirect presence throughout the game. He was commonly acknowledged on when somebody had died. The knife he had used in the beginning was stolen by Ace and had the possibility to kill somebody. His bracelet was also snatched and used by Ace to kill Guy X, whose real identity was Nagisa Nijisaki. His death was also used as an excuse for some of the other players not to go to Door 5 and briefly mentioned when the remaining players had reunited in the large hospital room. In the library, Snake had told Junpei about Cradle Pharmaceutical and its four executives, one of them being Teruaki Kubota. His identity was finally revealed in one of the rooms past the smaller Door 9. When Ace tried to open [q|Door "[9"]] in the incinerator with Kubota's, Ace's, and Lotus's bracelet, the RED did not open the door and Ace had left his guard down. After Seven had attacked Ace, Junpei revealed how Ace had killed Kubota, Nijisaki, and Musashidou. Trivia *The first syllable of Kubota is a homonym of the number 9 and the letter q. This is a reference on how the number 9 and the letter q sound so similar in the Japanese version. *He is the only character who does not get to choose his codename since once he takes Clover hostage, Junpei already refers to him as the 9th Man. *He is the only player of the Second Nonary Game that does not have his age revealed. It is possible that his age is a digital root of 9 since all the other players' ages add up to 243, which its digital root is 9. *For some reason, Kubota's hand was never seen pressed against the RED's scanner panel yet in the trailer of the game, his hand was seen pressed against the panel along with the rest of the players' hands. *Oddly enough, the sprite of him raising his right hand up with him smirking does not have his lips moving, making it part of a screenshot rather than a sprite. *In the beginning, the textbox that displays when a character speaks displays "???" for Kubota when he speaks. Later on though, it is displayed "9th Man" when he was seen speaking. *Although Junpei was the first one to call Kubota by his respective codename in his inner monologue, the other players call Kubota that, even if his codename was never spoken out loud when Kubota is alive. *As he is the first person to die in the Second Nonary Game, it is impossible to save him from his miserable death. *In the Japanese and American character ranking polls, Kubota is #9, respectively the least popular character. *Kubota is Kinu Nishimura's, the character designer's, favorite character. *He is the only character not to have his early designs and character development art to be revealed. *He has the fewest sprites out of the 9 players, having only two. *Since whenever June gets a fever, it signifies that Junpei is on the wrong path, leading her to burn in the incinerator. She gets said fever shortly after Kubota's death, implying that he wasn't supposed to die in the first place. Category:Characters